Cargando…
Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic
PURPOSE: Synchronous virtual care rapidly expanded worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic to provide remote medical assessment, minimizing contact and disease transmission risk. Despite its benefits, such an abrupt expansion has shed light on the need to address patients' level of satisfaction wi...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier Inc.
2023
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9851917/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36706717 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjoto.2023.103791 |
_version_ | 1784872515985735680 |
---|---|
author | Tselapedi-Sekeitto, Boipelo Rocha, Taciano Sowerby, Leigh J. Rotenberg, Brian Biadsee, Ameen |
author_facet | Tselapedi-Sekeitto, Boipelo Rocha, Taciano Sowerby, Leigh J. Rotenberg, Brian Biadsee, Ameen |
author_sort | Tselapedi-Sekeitto, Boipelo |
collection | PubMed |
description | PURPOSE: Synchronous virtual care rapidly expanded worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic to provide remote medical assessment, minimizing contact and disease transmission risk. Despite its benefits, such an abrupt expansion has shed light on the need to address patients' level of satisfaction with this service delivery. The purpose of this study was to investigate patients' satisfaction, travel cost, productivity loss, and CO(2) emissions involved with synchronous virtual care and in-person assessments in rhinology and sleep apnea clinics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective comparative study included patients managed via virtual care, or in-person clinic visit at St. Joseph Hospital, London, Canada, from December/2020 to April/2021, with rhinology pathologies or sleep apnoea. Patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ-18) scores were assessed. The overall scores of respondents were recorded including cost implications. RESULTS: A total of 329 patients were invited, 28.5 % responded (n = 93). 33 virtual care (age 48 ± 6), and 60 in-person (age 51 ± 19). There was no statistical significance in PSQ-18 scores. However, under a diagnosis-based subgroup analysis, allergic rhinitis patients on virtual care presented a significantly lower PSQ-18 scores on the general satisfaction (3.28 vs. 4.25, p = 0.04). The time spent with the doctor was directly correlated with age for patients seen in-person (r = 0.27; p = 0.037). The estimated loss of productivity for the Virtual care group was CAD 12, patients assessed in-person presented an average loss of productivity about six times higher (CAD 74 ± 40). CONCLUSIONS: Overall patients' satisfaction did not depend on whether they were seen virtually or in-person. However, time spent with the doctor contributed to higher satisfaction levels, but only among older patients who were seen in person. Nonetheless, allergic rhinitis patients seemed less satisfied with the virtual care option. Virtual care demonstrates economic benefits. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9851917 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Elsevier Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98519172023-01-20 Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic Tselapedi-Sekeitto, Boipelo Rocha, Taciano Sowerby, Leigh J. Rotenberg, Brian Biadsee, Ameen Am J Otolaryngol Article PURPOSE: Synchronous virtual care rapidly expanded worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic to provide remote medical assessment, minimizing contact and disease transmission risk. Despite its benefits, such an abrupt expansion has shed light on the need to address patients' level of satisfaction with this service delivery. The purpose of this study was to investigate patients' satisfaction, travel cost, productivity loss, and CO(2) emissions involved with synchronous virtual care and in-person assessments in rhinology and sleep apnea clinics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective comparative study included patients managed via virtual care, or in-person clinic visit at St. Joseph Hospital, London, Canada, from December/2020 to April/2021, with rhinology pathologies or sleep apnoea. Patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ-18) scores were assessed. The overall scores of respondents were recorded including cost implications. RESULTS: A total of 329 patients were invited, 28.5 % responded (n = 93). 33 virtual care (age 48 ± 6), and 60 in-person (age 51 ± 19). There was no statistical significance in PSQ-18 scores. However, under a diagnosis-based subgroup analysis, allergic rhinitis patients on virtual care presented a significantly lower PSQ-18 scores on the general satisfaction (3.28 vs. 4.25, p = 0.04). The time spent with the doctor was directly correlated with age for patients seen in-person (r = 0.27; p = 0.037). The estimated loss of productivity for the Virtual care group was CAD 12, patients assessed in-person presented an average loss of productivity about six times higher (CAD 74 ± 40). CONCLUSIONS: Overall patients' satisfaction did not depend on whether they were seen virtually or in-person. However, time spent with the doctor contributed to higher satisfaction levels, but only among older patients who were seen in person. Nonetheless, allergic rhinitis patients seemed less satisfied with the virtual care option. Virtual care demonstrates economic benefits. Elsevier Inc. 2023 2023-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9851917/ /pubmed/36706717 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjoto.2023.103791 Text en © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Tselapedi-Sekeitto, Boipelo Rocha, Taciano Sowerby, Leigh J. Rotenberg, Brian Biadsee, Ameen Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
title | Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
title_full | Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
title_fullStr | Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
title_full_unstemmed | Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
title_short | Telemedicine as an environmental ally - The social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
title_sort | telemedicine as an environmental ally - the social, financial, and environmental impact of virtual care in the otolaryngology clinic |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9851917/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36706717 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amjoto.2023.103791 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT tselapedisekeittoboipelo telemedicineasanenvironmentalallythesocialfinancialandenvironmentalimpactofvirtualcareintheotolaryngologyclinic AT rochataciano telemedicineasanenvironmentalallythesocialfinancialandenvironmentalimpactofvirtualcareintheotolaryngologyclinic AT sowerbyleighj telemedicineasanenvironmentalallythesocialfinancialandenvironmentalimpactofvirtualcareintheotolaryngologyclinic AT rotenbergbrian telemedicineasanenvironmentalallythesocialfinancialandenvironmentalimpactofvirtualcareintheotolaryngologyclinic AT biadseeameen telemedicineasanenvironmentalallythesocialfinancialandenvironmentalimpactofvirtualcareintheotolaryngologyclinic |